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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29705406">I Have a (Blue)Bird</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcanumArcanorum/pseuds/ArcanumArcanorum'>ArcanumArcanorum</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dean's Top 13 Zepp Traxx [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Compliant, Coming Out, Coping, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It, Grief, Happy Ending, Healing, Heaven, Led Zeppelin References, M/M, Married Castiel/Dean Winchester, Meta, Multi, Non-Explicit Sexual Content, Philosophy, Psychology, TheirLoveWasReal, canon-divergent, finale denialism, is it mcd if the characters are already dead, myth, some are dead but that's ok</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:07:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,236</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29705406</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcanumArcanorum/pseuds/ArcanumArcanorum</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A followup to my first TheirLoveWasReal piece, touching more directly on the relationships post-farewells. Castiel and Dean discuss their time(s) apart by death. Sam and Eileen discuss living in the current. Jack simply has a chance to live.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dean's Top 13 Zepp Traxx [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2182767</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Their Love Was Real: a Destiel &amp; Saileen Fanworks Challenge</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Have a (Blue)Bird</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Tell me again … what you saw.”  </em>
</p><p>Kelly’s voice was distant; not here or there or anywhere; in the void of memory.</p><p>
  <em> "I saw... the future.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p><em> “What did you see?” </em>Dean’s voice was nearer in this eternal place, more familiar.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ‘I see you.'    </em>
</p><p>“I saw you.”</p><p>
  <em> I don’t know why I get so angry. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It’s just always been there. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>You're destructive, and you're angry, and you're broken. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You're “daddy's blunt instrument".’ </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“I saw a world without pain, or hunger, or want...”</p><p> </p><p>And when things go bad, it just -- it comes out. </p><p>And I can't -- I can't stop it. </p><p>
  <em> 'And you think that hate and anger, that's...  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> That's what drives you, that's who you are.'' </em>
</p><p>“A world without fear, and without suffering, and without hate.”</p><p>
  <em> No matter how-- how bad I want to,  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I just can't stop it. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> 'It's not.'   </em>
</p><p>
  <b>“I saw the world this child. Our child. Would create.”</b>
</p><p>“I saw you. And Sam,” The angel said as he laid, arms crossed over the hunter’s chest in the afterglow of revelries. “And I didn’t know it then, but… I saw myself. I saw paradise.”</p><p>Castiel opened his eyes from recollection, meeting emerald eyes full of contentment.</p><p>The two were pressed so close, bare bodies pressed in the all-encompassing mattress of their upstairs bungalow, that Castiel could only see the question spark in the depths of the hunter’s eyes rather than the creases at the corner of them. </p><p>Dean sought answers from the blues that literally made the sky in this eternity here; this piece of his soul that rarely left their exclusive retreat. Elsewhere he adventured the eternal road, sought family, guarded the roadhouse heavenly gates as a regent, ate endless hotdogs- but here was the place he remained tied to heaven itself.</p><p>It was easy to steal away into the mind of eternity just as much as the body of it. There was nothing they were immune to sharing in Being at this point, no memory too walled.</p><p>Dean knew deeply that Castiel had seen and remembered many things; but flicker frames of first storm floods and towers of babel paled to the Grand Story; the multiple shots at ripping up the ending, and the rules; of Dean and Sam as Castiel’s Cain and Abel; of maybe a spark of Sodom and Gomorrah in brief flashes of Castiel perceiving Dean screaming for him beneath Lucifer’s control; and of course, maybe the most remarkable event--</p><p>The orphic child perceiving and coming to know man through the eyes of the grace-forged world who loved him too.</p><p>“I saw a world where you were happy, without me. A life you would live, able to be free to pursue your dreams.”</p><p>
  <em> ‘I always wanted to be a fireman when I grew up.’   </em>
</p><p>“I didn’t understand then. I didn’t know. It was my own shame and self loathing that carried all I understood. We were fighting. You were angry…”</p><p>“...Is this about when Jack was born or before we both died? Like for real.” </p><p>Dean realized he had to quantify that last one, but had been inquiring about the former after Castiel had let it be known he was watching them post-mortem.</p><p>“Hm. They’re the same.” </p><p>
  
</p><p>Castiel didn’t mean to sound mysterious as he stroked at a strand of Dean’s hair thoughtfully, but it didn’t keep the hunter from being confused.</p><p>Dean knew better than to say ‘<em> I don’t understand </em>’ as had become habit, and as Castiel always knew. He just gave the angel time to process; a look and even feeling he had come to know since their new life--afterlife. Instead, he segued as best he could: with a joke. </p><p>“You saw the dog?”</p><p>“Yes,” Castiel smoothly chuckled, “I saw the dog. I saw… a miracle.” </p><p>But with that, Castiel finally pulled himself to rise from the eternal entwinement he had with Dean. The shared room was union enough; the angel knew by now that it came from memories of Dean visiting another timeline Castiel had only narrowly rescued him from. Rustic walls and beaded doorways, strange artifacts and unnecessary gongs--a collection of the survivalist eccentric. </p><p>“You chose this place.” Castiel segued strangely as he found a grey robe thrown over a desk seat, pulling it warmly against himself while reflecting on memories framed on the wall.</p><p>“Yeah? I mean not on purpose. You dragged me up here but--guess it came from me because you--this you, or whatever,” Dean gestured from bed, propped up on an elbow, “Wasn’t there.”</p><p>Castiel stared out the window with hands in his pockets, glancing back from the Chitaqua forest line, “Do you know why?”</p><p>Dean had no idea how this was going to answer his question at all. </p><p>“I dunno,” he admitted, groaning as he sat up and finally swung his legs over the bed. </p><p>“There was something intimate to you here, wasn’t there?”</p><p>Dean blinked, taken aback. </p><p>“I mean--not really, but--” he paused, eyes searching the walls. “I think? I knew? That we had something there. Like. Future-me was a complete dick when you flirted with me or whatever.”</p><p>Castiel’s lips wrapped in a calm smile, turning to look back out into the memory of the wilds. “We had a life there.”</p><p>“I mean, if you can call it that. Not a happy one. You were all storm clouds and nihilism,” Dean admitted with an air of burden, rising to stand and finally head over towards the window. </p><p>He was less worried about cloaking himself. There was no shame there, and no cold. The angel seemed to enjoy putting on the bathrobe though, maybe for the idea of sharing something that once belonged to him in life. </p><p>“And surviving’s different from living. Bunch of rabid croats out there don't exactly sing honeymoon.”</p><p>Castiel turned to face Dean, tipping his chin up the bare inch needed to meet the other man. “Exactly.” Dean’s tiny head tilt charmed the angel if the spark in his eye said anything. “Dean, what is a shadow?”</p><p>“Are we going here again? Because like, I’m sure there’s at least three other me’s you’re running through the cosmic philosophy bint and there’s a perfectly good bed right there.”</p><p>Dean caught chiding eyes and quieted. </p><p>“No, I think <em> this </em> you needs to know this. For here and now.” </p><p>Dean headed to their mini-bar, pulling out a few fine bottles of divine honeyed whiskey touched by the apiary out behind the roadhouse and twin glasses pinched in his fingers. </p><p>“Alright,” he conceded, wandering to the breakfast table near the other window and setting down either glass. “Hit me,” he invited, as he poured their equal shares. </p><p>“A Shadow has no malice for you of its own. It is not a separate thing. It is only where the light does not touch. And the light is--”</p><p>
  
</p><p>“The soul, yeah, I’ve got that by now,” Dean cut in as he capped the bottle and set it down.</p><p>Castiel continued on as he approached the table, rimming the glass with his fingers but not lifting it. </p><p>“I’ve told you, Emptiness is not a thing, or a place any more than the garden or heaven is. The Shadow of the Empty is nothing more than what we hate about ourselves, what we fear. What we don’t want to admit we want, or who we are.”</p><p>“Okay?” Dean wandered to collect Castiel’s trench coat draped nearby to slide onto himself in counter to the other stealing his robe; even if cold and discomfort weren’t real here, the idea of sitting bare-assed on the roughly upholstered chair already made him itchy. </p><p>
  <em> Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love. <br/>
You raised your little brother for love. You fought for this whole world for love. <br/>
That is who you are.  </em>
</p><p>“This glass is still a glass whether empty or full,” Castiel raised it while easing himself into a chair, Dean matching him on the other side. “The shadow is just the empty glass,” he saw Dean’s gears turning. “You’re my whiskey, Dean.”</p><p>Dean’s face warped in a flash wave of micro expressed confusion and boyish flirtation grinning back at him. “I better be a damn good year.”</p><p><em>You're the most caring man on Earth. </em><br/>
<em>You are the most selfless, loving human being I will ever know.</em> </p><p>Castiel offered his cup out to clink a toast with Dean across the table, who met him halfway. </p><p>“Of course,” he gravelled in the most familiar way before moving on. “When I saw the future, I saw you without me. I saw you happy. I saw… heaven, for myself, and Jack; not knowing what that meant. And then I died.” </p><p>Dean deferred his gaze, but the angel kept on staring at him and speaking until his eyes drew back slowly. </p><p>“And I saw myself,” his gaze communed another memory, tangible and yet silent. Something the hunter would simply know.</p><p>
  <em> I have tiptoed through all your little tulips.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Your memories, your little feelings, yes.  </em>
</p><p>“I wanted you. Son knows I wanted you. And I wanted to believe… maybe I had even thought that you and I were courting at that time, with our gifts, and movies. I even let myself start to think you might have wanted me the way I felt. That I wasn’t misreading what I felt from you.”</p><p>
  <em> I know what you hate. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ...I know who you love. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ...What you fear. </em>
</p><p>“I shouldn’t love you. The old oath forbade it. And yet I found myself drawn to you. And then… I saw that future.”</p><p>
  <em> There is nothing for you back there. </em>
</p><p>“Strange to think I argued my way back to life purely on the idea that I was needed as a tool and not wanted as family; but whatever it took to be with you, to protect you, and to bring about that new world--that’s what I wanted.”</p><p>Being taught how to stand up. </p><p>What to stand for... </p><p>and what generally happens to you when you do.</p><p>
  <em> I used to just follow orders without question,  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> and I did some pretty terrible things.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I would never look beyond the plan.  </em>
</p><p>Dean found himself staring with the same quiet intensity of the night the angel confessed before disappearing, eyes traveling every inch of his features but not knowing what to say.</p><p>
  <em> And then, of course, when it all came crashing down,  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I found myself lost.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I didn't know what my purpose was anymore. </em>
</p><p>“I knew, even if I made your perfect world… it was something I would never have. Not with you. At first, because I didn’t think I belonged. And then… hearing you pray--hearing what I so cruelly, if oblivious, stopped you from saying; in fear for disappearing in that moment, that I might have it?”</p><p>
  <em> You don’t have to say it. </em>
</p><p>“That world was not yet there. I considered it a--” Castiel chuckled grimly, eyes drifting to the rafters of the ceiling, “A waste of how useful I could be moving forward. I had at least convinced myself I wasn’t useless, and maybe that was an improvement. Raising a son together made me reconsider much of this. I couldn’t let him think the way I did.”</p><p>
  <em> And then one day, something changed, something amazing.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I... I guess I found a family, and I became a father.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And in that, I rediscovered my faith.  </em>
</p><p>“I rediscovered who I am,” Castiel finished in the current. “I understood, then. It wasn’t in the having.” </p><p>He watched Dean’s eyes fill with mixed emotion; love, and maybe even a spark of fear as if this might be the last he heard again; a new goodbye. </p><p>“The happiness my Shadow wanted me to embrace would never destroy me. I didn’t even understand it when I said goodbye to you. It simply wanted to be known. And to be. The glass wasn’t empty anymore, Dean. I let you fill it.”</p><p>“Wh-” Dean choked. </p><p>How was it any time the angel opened his mouth--or his mind, in this strange place--he was always affirming him; how did every word always sound like adoration, every thought a declaration of love, even when he didn’t say it so.</p><p>“I wanted… that life with you so badly. But it was my own mind that warped what I saw. My own doubt, of who I should, or shouldn’t be; I saw a world without me and thought that was your paradise. It took being, living, and saying in the moment to know and become instead--anything you could ever want, or need. To give you anything you dream, in life or in death.”</p><p>“Yeah well.. I still would have wanted you there.” </p><p>Dean realized he had been cycling his drink in his grip, finally tossing it back on that harsh note.</p><p>“...But you understood. You understood I didn’t want you to live in suffering over it.”</p><p>Dean morbidly nodded through, eyes downward and overanalyzing the table grains his mind had come up with. </p><p>The angel tried to break the weighty silence with a jovial note, “Jack really made it all loud, didn’t he?” </p><p>“Yeah, you can-- you can say that again,” Dean obliged into the humor, still restrained but able to crack a grin and a laugh. </p><p>He took a moment to taste his tooth ridge. </p><p>That was certainly a far deeper answer than Dean had worried about like Castiel watching him break out the porn.</p><p>“I think we need music,” Dean popped up to head to the old style radio.</p><p>“You know you can always just-- turn it on,” from wherever, Castiel silently reminded.</p><p>“Yeah,” Dean interjected as he notched up Led Zeppelin’s <em> You Shook Me. </em>  “But where’s the style in that if we just magic our way through life?”</p><p>
  <em> You know you shook me </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You shook me all night long </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You know you shook me, baby </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You shook me all night long </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You shook me so hard </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Baby, baby, baby, please come home </em>
</p><p>Castiel set his lips firmly as the human fell into the music, somehow mastering an eyeroll without his eyes disentangling from Dean who was already point-boogying across the room with an accusatory finger to Castiel in his dramatized lip sync. The glass was deposited on the table and traded for kidnapping the angel by the bicep to yank him to his feet.</p><p>
  <em> I have a bird that whistles </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And I have birds that sing </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I have a bird that whistles </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And I have birds that sing </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I have a bird, won't do nothing </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Oh, oh, buy a diamond ring </em>
</p><p>Soon enough, Castiel found himself against the wall, and the rest was history.</p>
<hr/><p>Downstairs, Jo fiddled the neck of her drink and looked up in sync with Rufus and Jody. </p><p>“They’re at it again,” she tiredly mouthed her drink to various sounds of miscellaneous tinker drops and thuds narrowly made their way past organ, harmonica, and guitar solos trying to overwhelm the downstairs Jukebox of<em> Searchin’ For A Rainbow </em> in an active contest. </p><p>Jody tipped her head. “They’re always at it,” she cooperatively grumbled, silencing herself into her own drink.</p><p>The entire roadhouse took a toast to that.</p><p>
  <em> You know you shook me, babe </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You shook me all night long </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I know you really, really did, babe </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I said, you shook me, baby </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You shook me all night long </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You shook me so hard, baby </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You shook me all night long </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b> <em>BONGgGgGg.</em> </b>
</p>
<hr/><p>Elsewhere, Castiel and Dean looked up from their idle perch at the lakeside on a dock where Dean was fishing with the angel’s bystanding company.</p><p>Castiel furrowed his brows. “I think we need a new gong.”</p><p>
  <em> Might as well bang a few gongs on the way out. </em>
</p><p>“Are we breaking the room again?” Dean queried.</p><p>“We’re breaking the room again.” Affirmative.</p><p>“Well luckily reimagining it is free.”</p><p>Castiel squinted over the placid lake. “Maybe we should renovate.”</p><p>“You think? I like it. Kind of quaint. In that rustic survival hell kind of way. It suits us.”</p><p>Castiel looked pleasantly humored. “I wouldn’t change much. But I’m thinking more… living, than surviving.”</p><p>Dean tipped his head to-and-fro. </p><p>“Fair ‘nough,” he jolted as his line was tugged, with both men going silent beyond the hunter’s aggressive grunting as he waged warfare on the other end of his line.</p><p>Once a mighty bass was hanging on the line, Castiel watched Dean proudly celebrate and wave it around like a prize from a crane game. Seeing the daily, eternal youthful vigor of the hunter was all the angel could have ever asked for. </p><p>But he had to intercede when Dean went to put it in the green cooler. It was unspoken, but even from behind Dean saw the judging eyes on him. “What?” </p><p>They had been through this before. “You don’t have to actually cook it or eat, Dean,” Castiel reminded.</p><p>“Yeah! But it’s like the reward of it all. Play the game, get the prize, have the dinner date,” Dean defended, only to see perpetual judgment from his heavenly partner.</p><p>“Put it <em> back </em>, Dean. There’s plans for that fish.”</p><p>Dean gruffed, muttering his protest while unhooking it and setting it back into the water, “Whatever happened to no cosmic plans?”</p><p>“I didn’t say they were cosmic,” the angel interceded. “But it, like every piece of soul and mind in heaven, has its own plans. And they might become something else one day.”</p><p>Dean looked confused.</p><p>The angel rolled his eyes. “If Chuck’s world was like ours, these small ones here, and if all learned and evolved and grew, what do you think will happen as humanity’s realms grow broader?”</p><p>A thought sparked in Dean’s eyes.</p><p>Castiel vocalized it. “Welcome to heaven controlled by man, Dean. Try not to chew on the ants for sport. But,” he tapped him on the shoulder, “I’ll let you get away with playing with them once in a while. As a treat.”</p><p>The angel walked away towards the Impala without looking back. Dean softly looked after him before realizing he risked being left behind. Quickly bundling his stock and wares, he headed back to the car, where the angel already opened the back door for him to shove in his supplies. </p><p>“Dean?”<br/>
“Yeah Cas?”</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>Without hesitation, “I love you too man.”</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em> ‘Hey… what do you think our legacy’s gonna be?  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> When we're gone, I mean, after all the stuff we've done, you think folks will remember us? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You know, like, a hundred years from now?’ </em>
</p><p>Back on earth, Sam mulled over his laptop, hand propped on his chin as a back client scoured for searches, analyzed data and potential cases. The main window, however, was Eileen staring back at him from the bunker. </p><p>
  <em> Guys like us, we're not exactly the type of people   </em>
</p><p>
  <em> they write about in history books, you know? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But the people we saved, they're our legacy. </em>
</p><p>“There hasn't been a monster-related death in the united states in the last eleven months.” Eileen updated over the video client while Sam stared on, a pleasant smile steaming as much as his coffee as he stared at her.</p><p>“Yeah, looks like the new warding alert systems did most of the work for us,” Sam made sure to speak into the active camera clearly, signing halfway along as best he had learned to help clarify. </p><p>He hadn’t forgotten Toni’s tips and, while it had taken a great deal of scouring the men of letters archives, once the various alarm warnings for primary monster types were uncovered it just took contacting the local hunters to get them to set up regional reporting zones. They may not have had Butters powering the table anymore, but they could reactivate it by proxy of more modern Men of Letters means. </p><p>
  <em> ‘Let me paint you a picture. Of a world without monsters, or demons,  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> or any of those little buggers that go bump in the night.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Of a world where no one has to die because of the supernatural.'</em>
</p><p>A monster hit a zone. In 20 minutes, it was identified. In 40, it was assessed. They knew better than murdering outright these days. There were too many Garths in the world, just doing their best. Of course many stayed under observation without their knowledge, but the cameras were easy enough for Eileen and the other hunters that had put the bunker back online to manage--and Sam could occasionally flip to them on remote view access. </p><p>“It’s almost too quiet.” Eileen sounded sad about it. “Don’t know what to do when nothing’s going wrong.”</p><p>
  <em> And they'll remember us and then I guess... </em>
</p><p>
  <em> We'll eventually fade away, too. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> That's fine, because we left the world better than we found it, you know. </em>
</p><p>“Yheah,” Sam chuckled. “Tell me about it,” he uprighted himself. “The house is so quiet with Jack off to college I don’t even know what to do when Dean’s at daycare.”</p><p>A long silence took them both before Eileen tentatively poked. “Do you think they’re doing okay? You know, upstairs?” complete with a gesturing point skyward.</p><p>Sam took in a breath and slowly nodded through it. “Yeah. I’m sure they’re taking care of each other. We’ll get up there and find some sort of futuristic utopia with… classic cars and naked green women. And probably Beyonce.” He laughed off Eileen’s confusion, waving it away. “They’re fine. Maybe later we can do a seance and try to break through. It’s worked before when we wanted to talk to Bobby.”</p><p>Eileen nodded through that with thoughtfully cinched lips. “Until then?”</p><p>Sam raised his eyebrows suggestively, “Well, I was thinking of going out for a drive. I could swing by there, pick you up, and we do something tonight?”</p><p>“What about Dean?” </p><p>Junior, of course, contextually.</p><p>“Well, okay. How about you convince Donna to come out here and we can take a swing around in the Mustang?”</p><p>“...Sounds good by me.”</p><p>
  <em> You think we could ever change things?  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I mean, really change things?  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You know, stop all the monsters, all the bad? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ‘That would be nice.’ </em>
</p><p>
  <b> <em>  </em> </b>
</p><p>Eileen didn’t have to gussy herself up for Sam, she knew that. The new on deck hunters, which spent most of their days playing cards over the library table, were informed she would be out for the evening. She hoisted her bag from the carved marks of names left as the legacy of the family that made it all possible, and headed out for her date.</p><p>
  <b> <em> A new world. A better on</em></b>
  <b><em>e.</em> </b>
</p>
<hr/><p> “Best beer and wings in the world.” </p><p>Dean Winchester and Castiel had settled into the vibrantly and colorfully lit stage-flanking tables. The hunter had a face full of memories from Swayze’s, while the angel simply knit his fingers and watched him immerse himself.  </p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Nothing,” Castiel uprighted himself. “I’m just wondering if it’s possible to eat yourself sick here.”</p><p>Dean made a cutting gesture to dash it out of the air. </p><p>“Anything goes. Except cheese,” Dean tapped the side of his head. “Chuck really got up in here with that lactose thing.” </p><p>The hunter caught the angel opening his mouth, and pointed to slash that talking point off and interrupted </p><p>“You’re not taking the cheese off my heaven burgers even if I get the shits.”</p><p>“...You’re not the only one who has to deal with it,” Castiel rolled his eyes, dipping a fry in ketchup while side eyeing the current karaoke serenade going on just above their shoulder level.</p><p>Dean filled the room with a hearty, crass laugh.</p><p>“Yeah well, pry it out of my cold dead fingers!” as an extra round, this one sounding off their nearby company with a round of laughter.</p><p>Eventually he sobered. “You think they’re doing okay down there?”</p><p>Castiel raised his brows. “Well, we haven’t heard about Jack--or Jod--coming back,” Castiel reasoned. “Your brother and Eileen have each other. And they knew to make some safe changes. I think they were ready for this. They’re fine.”</p><p>Dean nodded through it eagerly, picked up his mug and took an overlarge beer swig to chase the thought down with a refreshing burst of air to finish it. Ah. </p><p>“You’re right.”</p>
<hr/><p>Jack was never alone on the road of life, not even through college. Sam had known what books to recommend and even managed to gift a few war-torn copies of his old study books that had somehow survived the decades of chaos. Jack never told Sam that they never actually helped his courses, but they stayed nearby on his desk being worth more than any shiny new installations. </p><p>They just didn’t come out with him when the Impala took to town with his friends, maybe entertaining Claire, Alex, Patience and Kaia more than he ever admitted to his de facto parent units. He rarely managed to find the schedule to try to pack all four in the car like sardines, but a cruise with any two on the open road--more often Claire and Kaia, with Alex staying at work when she wasn’t at school, and Patience trying very hard to stay actually busy getting back to classes--made up this evening, like many others while they hooped their way through downtown and bright lights, making any series of mistakes together. </p><p>Sam and Eileen were a few states away enjoying the night in a hot red Mustang, feeling just as young; and somewhere, an ageless duo crossed the neverending sea of stars to find what new heaven called to them.</p><p> </p>
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